Daughter: The Soul Journey of a Black Woman in America Having a Human Experience

By Ebonee Davis

Daughter is a memoir-style collection of poems and essays by model and poet Ebonee Davis that form the narrative of what it looked like for a young black woman in America to break generational cycles, begin to heal the trauma that lives in all of our bodies, and embark upon the spiritual awakening that changed her life.
An introspective exploration of growth, healing, forgiveness, and self-love, Ebonee Davis’s debut collection is a must-read for anyone and everyone having a uniquely human experience in an ever-devolving world. Timely, moving, and inspiring, Daughter is a powerful reminder that the journey to true freedom must always begin with the journey within.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
• Release date: Oct 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781524893125

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Daughter copyright © 2023 by Ebonee Davis. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.

Andrews McMeel Publishing

a division of Andrews McMeel Universal

1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106

www.andrewsmcmeel.com

ISBN: 978-1-5248-9312-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023934439

Editor: Danys Mares

Art Director/Designer: Tiffany Meairs

Production Editor: Margaret Utz

Production Manager: Shona Burns

Ebook Production: Jasmine Lim

Illustration by Deun Ivory

DISCLAIMER: Some names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

Time For Change was previously published in a different form in Harper’s Bazaar, July 2016.

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For my nephews.

May the world you grow up in be a better place

because of it.

Preface

I often find myself gazing out at the trees just beyond my living room window as they wave their branches and greet each new dawn with grace and fortitude. I watch as they change day by day, surrendering to the season—to the wind and the rain, to the heat and the cold, to the storms and the snow. Through it all, their roots remain firmly planted. Come spring, I admire the cherry blossoms and the bees they entice. Come summer, I admire the vibrant green leaves. Come fall, I admire the rich, warm hues of red, yellow, and orange. Come winter, I admire the space that is created for this cycle to take place all over again the following year.

It is necessary for the trees to lose their leaves each winter so that they can return even more magnificent than before. With each season, their trunks widen and their roots deepen. And because we understand this cyclical shedding and blooming, we never think to ourselves, This tree is dying. We understand that it is part of a process, and we perceive this shedding and clearing-away of the old as preparation for what is to come, rather than as an ending. Every time the trees surrender and shed, they are given an opportunity to add.

With this analogy in mind, I invite you to consider for a moment that perhaps the way we have agreed to regard death in the Western world may very well be a misinterpretation of the truth: Death is not the antithesis of life but rather the catalyst for it. Death is the very function that ensures life’s continuation. It is the eternal tango between life and death that perpetuates the fundamental experience of existence on Earth: evolution. And it is one’s ability to adapt that dictates the quality of this experience.

The evidence of this relationship is all around us and we can observe this dance in patterns throughout nature. The caterpillar begins its life belly to the ground, limited to its immediate surroundings, vision obstructed by all that grows tall around it. The caterpillar assumes that this form is the sum of its being, unaware of what it has yet to become. It does not know that the mundanity of its present existence pales in comparison to the life it is destined to live.

Then the caterpillar is called, just as we are called, to abandon this form and become something greater. But in order to undergo this great transformation, the caterpillar must retreat into the darkness and solitude of its own chrysalis. It must face a small death. Not of the flesh or the spirit but of the mind, which has assumed an identity based on the caterpillar’s past experiences. The mind only knows that which has been—unlike the soul, which holds the codes to our ascensions before we are even birthed into this physical dimension—and cannot conceive of that which has yet to come.

After this period of death and darkness, the butterfly emerges, wings to the sky. Its world changes, not because it demands anything outside of itself to change, but because the butterfly surrendered to its pending evolution. It released all attachments to the life it had known, allowing its own perspective to shift. When the butterfly changed itself, it changed its entire reality.

The butterfly demonstrates for us that our culturally agreed upon notions of death are false: Death is not a bleak and final farewell that we must dread but a gateway to a new evolutionary beginning. It is not something to run from or mourn over. It is perhaps even a cause for celebration. Death is not an ending but a reentering of the womb, so that we may be further gestated and birthed once more into a higher dimension of our being. It is not separate from life but a phase in life’s cyclical unfolding. Not only is it essential, but death, like birth, is one of life’s most sacred processes; it is the harmonious union of life and death that allows our very existence to be renewed, reshaped, and reimagined.

Like butterflies, we are born first to our biological mothers, and years later, after having lived out our adolescence bound by the limitations and expectations of our environment, identities shaped entirely by the programming of our families, the culture into which we were born, and the ideas we have of ourselves bound by others’ imaginative constructs, we are called to reenter the womb of the cosmic mother so that we may be born again. This is the hero’s journey, a story template common across civilizations all throughout history. Odysseus, for example, set sail for ten years and faced a number of trials before returning home to meet his highest calling and defeat the suitors who had taken possession of his land in his absence. Or Simba, the young cub in The Lion King who runs away from home tormented by the belief that he is responsible for his father’s death. With the help of some unlikely allies and a series of initiations that transform Simba from cub to king, he returns to Pride Rock to claim his throne and cast out the reigning evil.

The word hero itself may be misleading, as it alludes to glamour and excitement, but for a true hero, the transformation from mundane to supernatural is often characterized by feelings of fear, anger, resentment, and sadness as they are forced to leave their family and community behind in search of an identity outside the binding social contracts of culture and tradition. The journey is not easy but, as in all of creation, the most beautiful life-forms frequently rise from the most adverse conditions, such as the lotus flower from mud or the rose from concrete. Perhaps with these metaphorical symbols of our own potential for transformation at hand, we can learn to use our energy to nurture who we are becoming rather than desperately grasping the past.

The sacred scarab, also known as the dung beetle, depicted throughout ancient Egyptian art, is another example of the dance between life and death. It is born into a pile of feces upon which it feasts until it becomes aware of its wings and makes its departure. It is the very thing that nourishes and protects the dung beetle in its infancy which limits its full potential as it matures. The dung beetle must abandon its place of birth if it wishes to live an exceedingly better life. As with the dung beetle, it is often the very thing that sustains us in our infancy and adolescence that hinders us from reaching our full potential in adulthood. If we sit upon the pile of dung we were born into long enough, we cease to smell it. From our families and communities we learn ways of being that are essential to our survival within those contexts and may yield moderate success but ultimately become destructive or limiting elsewhere. Quite often we remain unaware of the pile of shit upon which we have built our lives and our familiarity with it keeps us stagnant. We choose it over and over, not because it is what we truly desire, but because we know how to function within it and therefore it presents an element of safety. It is our work to go within ourselves to find out who we truly are, beyond the limitations of the mind that knows only where and what we have been, so that we may ascend beyond the parameters of our past like the butterfly and the sacred scarab.

Our greatest gift as human beings, and the characteristic that separates us from the natural world and animal kingdom, is our ability to choose our becoming. We as humans have the unique capacity to take part in our own evolution. If we can learn to dance with death rather than classify it as something to be feared, we can also learn to welcome life’s changes knowing that everything is unfolding for our highest good, even when we find ourselves in a state of discomfort. In this way, we alleviate our own suffering by detaching from expectations of how things should be or memories of how things have been, creating space for new and wonderful possibilities.

She Is Coming

I wonder if trees watch the moon

And know when to ask for fruit

Do they long for June

When January makes a mockery

Of last season’s creations?

Or do they know

January is preparing them

For something greater?

Do they understand cycles?

Because if I did,

Instead of holding on

I might just let go

I might live in the present

Because although I don’t

Fear the future,

I’m aware of its

Ebb and flow

But I wouldn’t cherish

One over the other,

I’d know they’re both necessary

Like stubbed toes

Teach us as children not to cut corners

We don’t always listen

But the signs are always there

I wonder if as a child I knew my pain was preparing me for more

I never let it swallow me whole

Not the same way it swallowed

Everyone around me

My mother

My sister

My friends

My community

I became a cavity

In the mouth of the beast

Because I stayed too sweet

Like the day I was born

My grandma used to call me

A little chocolate drop

Maybe that’s what she mean

She was always clairvoyant

And that’s how I learned to see

Maybe her words were prophecy

I was here to rot the system

The dentures

That clenched down

On centuries of women

Preventing them from

Knowing the truth

In this dimension

We rule and our wisdom

Comes from the womb

We’ve been given

Our connection to God

Has been pillaged

Like the land we descend from

Who is defending the land I descend from?

Deafening screams

Deferred dreams

Diluted streams

So apparently no one

SOLD to the highest bidder

Don’t ask me why I’m bitter

I’ve tasted bloody rivers

Wounds stung by salt water

When human cargo gets delivered

I’ve had my womb raided

My children taken and

My body drilled in

Build the skyscraper

But burn down the village

Love the oil

But hate human of the same pigment

Bottom of the ship

Not a single pot to piss in

Rob the land of its riches

Then paint depictions of sickness

Breast-fed liquid gold

Whole world latched on my titty

Such a pity they

Let me die in labor

Still use my sons

To build their cities

Private prisons

Electoral committees

The auction block a courtroom

Souls bought and sold for pennies

Parasitic blood suckers

Sadistic motherfuckers

Genocidal gun lovers

Invading territory

We hold sacred

Our grandmothers’ psyches

Hold enough secrets

To sink spaceships

Heavy is the head that wears the crown,

They say the kitchen’s

Where the nape is

Probably because these crops

Fed a whole nation

My cornrows and my cajun